


Saliency

by cheeryos



Series: wasteland, baby! [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe, COVID-19, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, covid au, pandemic meet cute?, the world is a nightmare so we should all take our happiness where we find it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:09:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27184997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheeryos/pseuds/cheeryos
Summary: Somehow Ronan has become Gansey’s designated quarantine errand boy. Before long, he realizes the job isn’t too bad, actually.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Series: wasteland, baby! [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998070
Comments: 29
Kudos: 181





	Saliency

The first time was Gansey’s fault.

“Hey Lynch, did you drink all the orange juice?” Gansey slid sock-footed into Ronan’s open doorway, catching himself on the frame. Ronan looked up from where he lounged upside down on his bed, feet up the wall and head hanging down off the edge.

“No, Gansey, I did not. I drank all the beer. _You_ drank all the juice.”

“Oh. Right.”

Gansey continued to hover in Ronan’s doorway. Ronan didn’t move. Gansey also didn’t move.

“…was there something else?”

“Want to go get some new juice anyways?”

Ronan sighed.

“Not particularly.”

“Ronan, you know I can’t—” Gansey began.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Ronan cut him off. He had heard the spiel at least ten times already in the past week. He knew very well that Gansey couldn’t go to the store himself. Gansey had a Very Important Family Vacation (read: unavoidable family obligation) to attend in a few days. Luckily, the Gansey clan was being responsible and following all the guidelines about negative tests and self-isolation periods for the appropriate time before group gatherings. Unluckily, that meant that Ronan was now in charge of all outside activities and he wasn’t allowed within fifteen feet of Gansey.

It was actually kind of funny watching Gansey try to avoid him like—well, the cliche “like the plague” had taken on an unfortunately literal meaning these days. In any case, Ronan was tickled by Gansey’s frantic darting out of rooms whenever he entered one.

He sighed again and started to get up. On cue, Gansey scuttled away and back into his own room, yelling, “Get some Pop Tarts too! Thanks, buddy, I owe you!” as he slammed the door.

And so Ronan, being a Good Friend and Responsible Citizen, grabbed his wallet, dug a mask out of the stack by the door, and thus fortified, headed out to the Kroger.

For some unexplainable reason, they were still out of Pop Tarts (they had been out for months—what the hell was with this town and the run on Pop Tarts??) but he picked up a few boxes of generic brand “Toaster Treats” and a bottle of juice (pulp free, because pulp was too spicy for Gansey’s delicate bougie palate, or something). He also grabbed a bag of candy corn (because he was a child) and a bag of Bit-O-Honey (because Gansey was a ninety year old man) from the Halloween display.

His typical self-checkout screen was out of order (even during the Before Times, when things were normal, he did all he could to avoid small talk with strangers), so he headed to the 10-items-or-less aisle instead. He glanced casually up at the cashier, completely unprepared for the lightning bolt about to strike his chest dead-fucking-center.

Once, when the brothers Lynch were young, their parents took them to Myrtle Beach during summer break. Ronan couldn’t recall much of what they did. What remained instead were formless impressions. Flashes of sensation, color, emotion. Grit between his toes. The cry of seagulls and the smell of salt on the warm breeze. And a rich, bright blue everywhere he looked. The sky, the sea, the one reflecting the other, bouncing around and spreading out until it seemed as if the entire world was the same vivid shade. Each flash of recall brought forth a calm, happy contentment, as if nothing could really be too terrible, as long as that tranquil blue place still existed somewhere in the world.

The mask covering the nose and jaw of the boy at the register left little else to draw Ronan’s gaze. There was his forehead, he supposed—a fairly nice one, not overly large or small, but otherwise unremarkable. But that vivid blue of the boy’s eyes, and the slow blink of dusty lashes— _Jesus_.

Ronan had not appreciated until this moment the strangely intimate way they all lived now, forced to look directly into each other’s eyes. He was worried he might collapse with the force of it now. He felt like a swooning maiden in some cheesy sexist fairy tale.

He didn’t know if it was months of isolation causing him to cling to any scrap of human connection with the grip of a shipwrecked mariner, or whether he’d be drawn to this boy’s blue eyes no matter where or when he saw them. It was possible he hadn’t noticed because he hadn’t really been looking at anyone else. It was more likely that no one else was as worth looking at.

He hurried quickly away with his purchases before his blush spread far enough to show beyond his own mask.

The second time was all Ronan.

He definitely did drink all of Gansey’s juice this time. He…may have mixed it with beer. It was, frankly, disgusting, but he needed an excuse to go to the store again and figured he might as well get drunk in the meantime. Who was anyone to judge? Quarantine life was already so goddamn weird.

The next day he marched back to the store before Gansey could even notice they were out.

“I think I’m having deja-vu.” The lilt in the cashier’s voice was a second blinding strike. He had already drowned in the boy’s gaze. He could drown a second time in those vowels, gooey and languid like molasses. His hands shook slightly as he put the bottle on the conveyor.

Ronan realized, after a beat (or several) too long, that he should probably respond. He cleared his throat.

“Hmm?”

Smooth.

The skin around the boy’s eyes crinkled slightly.

“I—” (it sounded more like _ah_ ) “—could swear you were just in here buying orange juice, like, yesterday. Or am I finally going nuts?”

 _He remembered me?_ Ronan didn’t know what to say. He decided to blame it on Gansey. It sounded far better than any alternative he could come up with, including the truth.

“Oh, uh, my roommate is addicted. And a temporary shut-in.”

The boy’s eyes crinkled more. Ronan ached to see his smile. He felt the absence physically, a pang underneath his ribcage.

“Aren’t we all these days?” the boy responded.

“Hey, speak for yourself. I go on daily juice runs.”

“A real social butterfly.” A lone pale eyebrow raised with that dry assessment of Ronan’s pathetic current existence.

He was pretty sure he was in love with that eyebrow.

“Is this a real conversation?” he asked. “I feel like I’m being perfectly social right now. In fact, this is going on a lot longer than I normally talk to people in grocery stores.”

The boy’s blue eyes narrowed slightly. He put Ronan’s receipt in his bag and shut the register firmly.

“Sorry to keep you, then. Have a nice day.”

Shit. Fuck. He fucked that up so bad. He was a goddamn disaster, incapable of flirting without sounding aggressive. He briefly considered trying to explain, and his traitorous brain rattled off a hundred different ways that could go horribly wrong in a split second. Instead he grabbed his bag, gave a single nod, and left.

The next day Ronan dumped the near-full bottle of juice down the drain.

He went back to the store.

The boy wasn’t at the register.

He put the juice back on the shelf and left empty-handed.

The day after that, Gansey yelled at him about the missing juice.

He went back to the store.

At least this time the roommate excuse wasn’t a lie. And this time he had a plan. He was going to be smooth and charming. Or if he couldn’t be that (and let’s face it, he really couldn’t be that) he’d settle for sounding remotely normal. He psyched himself up and walked up to the register.

“What can I say? Gansey’s insatiable,” he joked before the boy could even greet him.

The crinkle came back around the boy’s eyes. Maybe he was forgiven for his douchebaggery earlier. Ronan’s heart gave another minor flop, and his brain filed the expression away to peruse later.

“He’s gonna get…is there an opposite of scurvy?”

Ronan thought for a second.

“Yvrucs?”

The boy thought for a second.

Then he snorted.

“That is so terrible. You should be ashamed. You should apologize to my ear for having to hear that joke.”

“I don’t apologize. I always do exactly what I mean to.” Ronan held the boy’s steady gaze for a second, willing himself not to waver, not to blush, as the register spit out his receipt. The boy handed it over, and Ronan grabbed a pen from the counter. He scribbled a note on the back of the receipt, grabbed his bag, and left the scrap of paper before his nerve completely left him.

_I really like half of your face but can’t tell about the rest._

_Face Time?_

_– Ronan_

_540-224-7264_

His heart jackrabbited as he made his (average paced, not hasty, _don’t run for fuck’s sake_ ) exit. He prayed that he was walking normally, because he honestly couldn’t tell. His hands and feet felt strangely divorced from his body. He didn’t do shit like this. Everything about it was risky, and not in the fun way that he normally took his risks. He was, at least, pretty sure the boy had a decent sense of humor and wouldn’t be offended by the suggestion that the lower half of his face might be ugly. He was not at all sure if the boy was single, or even into guys. It was certainly possible he could actually be offended by the whole getting-hit-on-by-a-dude-thing.

On the other hand, the mask he wore gave Ronan at least the window dressing of anonymity. That was honestly the only reason he felt bold enough to leave his number with a _random guy at the grocerystoreholyfuckwhydidhedothat!_ Well, if it went wrong he could always just refuse to buy any more juice. Or he’d shop at the Walmart until the pandemic was over. In Staunton. At which point he’d look totally different, walking around with an entire face and all. Plus he’d probably be old then anyways because this pandemic was Never. Fucking. Going. To. Be. Over.

 _Please_ , he sent up a quick silent prayer. _Let this go right._

_…Let it at least be okay._

_…Let it at least not go terribly wrong._

Of course, it went terribly wrong as soon as Ronan got home and realized he had no idea where his phone actually was. He couldn’t even remember the last time he saw it. He never took it anywhere, never answered it, never responded to texts. His Luddite tendencies had finally come around to bite him in the ass, at the worst possible fucking time.

An hour later, he had torn Monmouth apart, and was sitting in the debris in the middle of the floor of the cavernous space, clutching his phone, victorious. As if by magic, it buzzed in his hand.

 _540-764-1383_ : Hey, this is Adam

 _540-764-1383_ : From the checkout

Ronan accidentally launched the stupid thing across the room as he tried to open the message app. As he scrambled to retrieve it and quickly save the number before anything else drastically calamitous happened, another text was delivered.

 _Adam (hot checkout guy)_ : Thanks for the note. Flattering...sort of.

Okay, this…wasn’t terrible. Not very clear though.

 _Ronan_ : but..?

 _Adam (hot checkout guy)_ : But nothing. You have nice eyes too.

 _Ronan_ : oh

 _Adam (hot checkout guy)_ : I’m worried you might not have a nose though

 _Adam (hot checkout guy)_ : Also I don’t have an iphone, so no face time.

Ronan’s stomach dropped. Was this Adam’s way of trying to let him down nicely? With a mild compliment, a mild joke, and a “sorry I’m not interested, try someone else?”

Before he could think of how to reply, another text buzzed in his hand.

 _Adam (hot checkout guy)_ : If you want you should skype me at aparrish19@gmail.com

 _YES_. He wanted. God, he wanted.

Fuck. Fuck, okay. Okay, he could do this. Okay, this was good. This was happening.

His hands were shaking as he typed the address into skype on his laptop. Jesus, he was such a disaster. He needed to get his shit together, quick.

_Connecting…_

The call picked up and there he was. The thin frame, the dusty hair swept carelessly to the side, and those eyes, again crinkled in amusement, so familiar now above…a blue cloth mask.

Ronan started laughing.

“Fuck off. Come on man, I'm dying here.”

Adam unhooked the straps from behind his ears, and Ronan could finally see the cheery smile beneath. His breath stopped.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help it. Hi.”

“Hi.”

They just sat and grinned at each other, drinking in features no longer separate, no longer isolated. Content, and happy, and together.

**Author's Note:**

> protect others; wear a mask. this dumb fic has been a PSA from your resident scientist.


End file.
